Month: September 2016

It’s not widely known that different airline programs charge different amounts of frequent-flyer miles for the same routes. For example, to fly Business Class from USA and Europe can cost 70,000 Delta SkyMiles, or just 37,500 British Air Avios. And, there are some smart ways to earn BA Avios even if you fly other airlines (like American).

A year ago Million Mile Secrets posted a creative way to use FlexPerks, a strange type of reward points. I’ve been sitting on slightly over 20,000 points and had no immediate use for them. My family flies Southwest Airlines a lot. So I turned to the MMS trick…and it still works!

One unexpected benefit of AARP membership is a substantial discount on trans-Atlantic British Air flights. The discount ranges from $65 up to $400 per person. Best of all, anyone of any age can join AARP for just $16.

SecretFlying has put together an around-the-world itinerary with 13 stops for just $1385! It hits many of the high places for tourism…Iceland, London, Istanbul, Singapore, Melbourne, Auckland, Honolulu, Los Angeles and New York.

Flying is made more tiring and stressful by the unavoidable background noise. Noise-cancelling headphones and earbuds reduce the droning sound level so you arrive in a better state of mind.

In general the noise seems to be worse the farther back in the plane you are sitting. Regional jets seem to be much noisier than larger aircraft.

I have used headphones with active noise cancellation for several years, with very good results. They have a switch on the side, and when you click it the noise level drops significantly…that’s how you know they use active sound cancellation. However, they take up room in my carry-on, so I’ve just ordered some “noise cancelling” Bluetooth earbuds from Amazon.